Thompson and the Cavaliers had reached an agreement early in free agency that was believed to have been centered on a five-year deal worth some $80 million. The problem with doing a deal at that number is that virtually everyone in Thompson’s talent range got substantially more, most receiving the NBA maximum salary, some for less years, but most for the same year one dollar amount.

Thompson’s camp pulled back from the $80 million number, wanting the Cavs to step up with more based on what virtually everyone else in Thompson’s peer range got.

I’m not sure who Thompson considers his peers, but I place him solidly behind Marc Gasol, LaMarcus Aldridge, Kevin Love, DeAndre Jordan, Greg Monroe, Draymond Green, Brook Lopez, Paul Millsap and Tim Duncan in the next group of big-man free agents.

Does that warrant more than the $16 million per season the Cavaliers reportedly offered?

Thompson might think he’s in the same group as Monroe (three-year max contract) and Green (five years, $82 million), but he’s not as good as those two. They deserve to be paid more than Thompson.

But deserve has only so much to do with it.

Thompson holds major leverage. If he takes the qualifying offer and leaves next summer, the Cavaliers won’t have the cap flexibility to find a comparable replacement. They can sign Thompson only because they have his Bird rights. That won’t be the case with outside free agents.

The Thunder were in the same boat with Kanter, which is why they matched his max offer sheet from the Trail Blazers. Thompson should point to that situation for comparison. The Cavaliers, though, would probably tell Thompson to bring them an offer sheet, like Kanter did with Oklahoma City.

But Thompson has even more leverage. He shares an agent, Rich Paul, with LeBron James. Cleveland surely wants to keep LeBron happy, and LeBron wants Thompson back.

Thompson might get more than $80 million. I wouldn’t be surprised if he got his max ($94,343,125 over five years). It just won’t be because his on-court peers all got that much. The max-level free agents – with the exception of Kanter – are a class above in actual ability.

But that Kanter comparison works for Thompson, and he and Paul should hammer it until the Cavaliers relent. No need to bring up that Kanter signed well after Thompson’s talks with Cleveland broke down. This is only minimally a discussion about logic and production.

It’s mostly about leverage, and no matter what flawed viewpoints got us here, Thompson still has leverage.

Hibbert has already witnessed Bryant’s brashness first-hand. The center broke his nose while fouling Bryant in an early 2012 game. Not long after, Hibbert said on a podcast that he talked to Bryant “expecting a little sympathy, and I got none from Kobe.”

But Hibbert says he and Bryant have since cleared the air, and that he’s “excited” to play alongside him.

“Just being able to play with a great [and] being pushed by somebody that has done it and won five championships. I’m up for a challenge,” Hibbert says. “People tell me a lot of different things, how he’ll respect me, and I feel like if I go about my business, I can get it done.”

“So,” Hibbert says before taking a long pause, “it’ll be a challenge. But I’m up for it. I’m not going to speculate on other people and how they interacted with him and their relationships, but I feel like if I put my best foot forward in practices and in games, I don’t feel like there will be any tension. And I’m the type of person that will be like, ‘Hey, if I did something, let’s talk it out,’ as opposed to just going back and forth every day.”

I’m reminded of the scorpion-and-frog fable. A scorpion wants to cross a river, but he can’t swim. So, he asks a frog to carry him across the water. The frog says no, fearing the scorpion will sting him. The scorpion assures the frog that he wont, because if he did, they’d both drown during passage. The frog relents, and the scorpion hops on his back. As they reach the middle of the river, the scorpion stings the frog, who begins to sink. The frog asks the scorpion why he did that, knowing it will kill them both.

“I couldn’t help it,” the scorpion says. “It’s in my nature.”

For Hibbert and Kobe to mesh, at least one will have to change his nature. That’s far from impossible, but I wouldn’t bet on it.

Expect either the league or the team (or both) to give some kind of punishment to Hill, likely a short suspension at the start of the season.

Hill averaged 12.0 points and 7.9 rebounds a game for the Lakers last season, and signed a one-year, $4 million deal with Indiana to replace Roy Hibbert at the center spot. (Hibbert is now with the Lakers.)

Rakeem Christmas was not going to be part of the Cavaliers roster — they are win-now, he is a guy in need of development.

Indiana has time to develop guys, so they have traded for him. The Pacers announced the move, saying they gave up the future second-round pick they acquired in the Roy Hibbert trade.

“We really liked Rakeem when he came in for pre-draft workouts,” Pacers basketball operations guru Larry Bird said in a statement. “He is a solid player who was a contributor all four years at Syracuse and we look forward to having him on our team.”

Christmas showed flashes of good defense and shot blocking, plus a little offense, at Summer League. However, he shot 33.3 percent and didn’t exactly blow any doors off. He’s a guy who spent four years at Syracuse and still needs to develop his game.

Christmas is 6’10” and incredibly long — a 7’5” wingspan. He was a shot blocker camped in the middle of the Syracuse zone in college, but he has the body to defend in the NBA post. He seemed to struggle against more athletic, smaller players.

For a Pacers team that just moved Hibbert from the middle of their defense, taking a flier on Christmas makes some sense. We’ll see if he can make the roster behind Jordan Hill, Myles Turner and Ian Mahinmi. That seems a long shot, but he’s got a better chance there than Cleveland.

They signed second-round pick Joseph Young to a contract starting at $1,007,026, according to Basketball Insiders. Had they waited, they could have used the room exception and had Young count $0 against the cap in the meantime. (Update: As Nate Duncan helpfully pointed out, the room exception can be for just two years. So, the Pacers needed cap space to give Young this deal.)

It’s unknown how Allen’s three-year, $12 million contract is structured, but his lowest possible starting salary is $3,720,930. Until signed, his cap hold is/was $947,276.

It’s also unclear how the Pacers fix this issue – whether the NBA just lets them undo completed deals and the re-execute them in the proper order or whether they’ll have to change someone else’s deal. Ellis won’t be the casualty, but that doesn’t mean Indiana won’t pay some price for its error. (Or it might not. I’m unsure how forgiving the NBA is.)

This is different than the Kenneth Faried contract extension Lowe mentioned, because that was just plain illegal. There was no alternative order of events that would made that legal.

The Pacers’ problem is more of a bookkeeping issue, one that wouldn’t have affected anyone’s end result. I guess we’ll learn how seriously the NBA takes this.